Billions & Billions (14 page)

Clearly, the problem is solved if a cheaper and more effective CFC substitute can be found that does not injure us or the environment. But what if there is no such substitute? What if the best substitute is more expensive than CFCs? Who pays for the research, and who makes up the price difference—the consumer, the government, or the chemical industry that got us into (and profited by) this mess? Do the industrialized nations who benefited from CFC technology give significant aid to the emerging industrialized states who have not? What if we need 20 years to be sure the substitute doesn’t cause cancer? What about the UV now pouring down on the Antarctic Ocean? What about all the newly manufactured CFCs rising toward the ozone layer between now and whenever the stuff is completely banned?

A substitute—or better, a stopgap measure—has been found. CFCs are temporarily being replaced by HCFCs, similar molecules but involving hydrogen atoms. For example:

They still cause some damage to the ozone layer, but much less; they are, like CFCs, a significant contributor to global warming; and, especially during start-up, they are more expensive. But they do address the most immediate need, protecting the ozone layer. HCFCs were developed by DuPont, but—the company swears—only
after
the discoveries at Halley Bay.

Bromine is, atom-for-atom, at least 40 times more effective than chlorine in destroying stratospheric ozone. Fortunately, it is much rarer than chlorine. Bromine is released to the air in halons used in fire extinguishers, and methyl bromide,

used to fumigate soil and stored grain. In 1994–96, the industrial nations agreed to phase out the production of these materials, capping them by 1996, but not totally phasing them out until 2030. Because there are as yet no replacements for some halons, there may be a temptation to keep on using them—ban or no ban. Meanwhile, a major technological issue is finding a superior long-term solution to overtake HCFCs. This might involve another brilliant synthesis of a new molecule, but perhaps will go in other directions—for example, acoustic refrigerators that have no circulating fluid carrying subtle dangers. Here
is an opportunity for creative invention. Both the financial rewards and the long-term benefit for the species and the planet are high. I’d like to see the enormous technical skill at the nuclear weapons laboratories, now increasingly moribund because of the end of the Cold War, turned to such worthy pursuits. I’d like to see generous grants and irresistible prizes offered to invent effective, convenient, safe, and reasonably inexpensive new modes for air conditioners and refrigerators—that are appropriate for local manufacture in developing nations.

The Montreal Protocol is important for the magnitude of the changes agreed to but especially for their direction. Perhaps most surprising, a ban on CFCs was agreed to when it was unclear that there would be a feasible alternative. The Montreal conference was sponsored by the United Nations Environment Programme, whose director, Mostafa K. Tolba, described it as “the first truly global treaty that offers protection to every single human being.”

It is an encouragement that we can recognize new and unexpected dangers, that the human species can come together working on behalf of all of us on such an issue, that rich nations might be willing to bear a fair share of the cost, and that corporations with much to lose can be made not only to change their minds, but to see in such a crisis new entrepreneurial opportunities. The CFC ban provides what in mathematics is known as an existence theorem—a demonstration that something that might, for all you know, be impossible can actually be accomplished. It is a reason for cautious optimism.

Chlorine seems to have peaked at about four chlorine atoms for every billion other molecules in the stratosphere. The amount is now decreasing. But at least partly because of bromine, the ozone layer is not predicted to heal itself soon.

Clearly, it’s too early to wholly relax on protecting the ozone layer. We need to make sure that the manufacture of these materials is almost entirely stopped all over the world. We need greatly enhanced research to find safe substitutes. We need comprehensive monitoring (from ground stations, airplanes, and satellites in orbit) of the ozone layer all over the globe
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at least as conscientiously as we would watch over a loved one suffering from heart palpitations. We need to know by how much the ozone layer is further stressed by occasional volcanic explosions, or continued global warming, or the introduction of some new chemical into the world atmosphere.

Starting shortly after the Montreal Protocol, stratospheric chlorine levels have declined. Starting in 1994 the stratospheric chlorine and bromine levels (taken together) have declined. If bromine levels also decline, the ozone layer should, it is estimated, begin a long-term recovery by the turn of the century. Had no CFC controls been instituted until 2010, stratospheric chlorine would have climbed to levels three times higher than today’s, the Antarctic ozone hole would have persisted until the mid-twenty-second century, and springtime ozone depletion in
the northern midlatitudes might have reached well above 30 percent, a whopping value—according to Rowland’s Irvine colleague Michael Prather.

In the United States there is still resistance from the air conditioning and refrigerator industries, from extreme “conservatives,” and from Republican members of Congress. Tom DeLay, the Republican House majority whip, was in 1996 of the opinion that “the science underlying the CFC ban is debatable,” and that the Montreal Protocol is “the result of a media scare.” John Doolittle, another House Republican, insisted that the causal link connecting ozone depletion with CFCs is “still very much open to debate.” In response to a reporter who reminded him of the critical, skeptical peer review by experts that papers establishing this link had been subjected to, Doolittle replied, “I’m not going to get involved in peer-review mumbo-jumbo.” It might be better for the country if he did. Peer review is in fact the great mumbo-jumbo detector. The Nobel Committee’s judgment was different. In conferring the Prize on Rowland and Molina—whose names should be known to every schoolchild—it commended them for having “contributed to our salvation from a global environmental problem that could have catastrophic consequences.” It’s hard to understand how “conservatives” could oppose safeguarding the environment that all of us—including conservatives and their children—depend on for our very lives. What exactly is it conservatives are conserving?

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The central elements of the ozone story are like many other environmental threats: We pour some substance into the atmosphere (or prepare to do so). Somehow we do not thoroughly examine its environmental impact—because examination would be expensive, or would delay production and cut into profits; or
because those in charge do not want to hear counterarguments; or because the best scientific talent has not been brought to bear on the issue; or simply because we’re human and fallible and have missed something. Then, suddenly, we are face-to-face with a wholly unexpected danger of worldwide dimensions that may have its most ominous consequences decades or centuries from now. The problem cannot be solved locally, or in the short term.

In all these cases, the lesson is clear: We are not always smart or wise enough to foresee all the consequences of our actions. The invention of CFCs was a brilliant achievement. But as smart as those chemists were, they weren’t smart enough. Precisely because CFCs are so inert, they survived long enough to reach the ozone layer. The world is complicated. The air is thin. Nature is subtle. Our capacity to cause harm is great. We must be much more careful and much less forgiving about polluting our fragile atmosphere.

We must develop higher standards of planetary hygiene and significantly greater scientific resources for monitoring and understanding the world. And we must begin to think and act not merely in terms of our nation and generation (much less the profits of a particular industry) but in terms of the entire vulnerable planet Earth and the generations of children to come.

The hole in the ozone layer is a kind of skywriting. At first it seemed to spell out our continuing complacency before a witch’s brew of deadly perils. But perhaps it really tells of a newfound talent to work together to protect the global environment. The Montreal Protocol and its amendments represent a triumph and a glory for the human species.

T
hree hundred million years ago the Earth was covered by vast swamps. When the ferns, horsetails, and club mosses died, they were buried in muck. Ages passed; the remains were carried down underground and there transformed by slow stages into a hard organic solid that we call coal. In other locales and epochs, immense numbers of one-celled plants and animals died, sank to the sea floor, and were covered by sediment. Simmering for ages, their remains were, by imperceptible steps, converted to buried organic liquids and gases that we call petroleum and natural gas. (Some additional natural gas may be primordial—not of biological origin but incorporated into the Earth during its formation.) After humans evolved there were occasional early encounters with these strange materials when they were carried to the
Earth’s surface. Seepage of oil and gas and their ignition by lightning is thought to be the origin of the “eternal flame” central to the fire worshiping religions of ancient Persia. Marco Polo was widely disbelieved when he told the European experts of his day the preposterous story that in China a black rock was mined that burned when lit.

Eventually, the Europeans recognized that these readily transported, energy-rich materials could be useful. They were much better than wood. You could warm your house with them, stoke a furnace, drive a steam engine, generate electricity, power industry, and make trains, cars, ships, and planes go. And there were potent military applications. So we learned to dig the coal out of the Earth and drive deep holes into the ground so the deeply buried gas and oil, compressed by the overburden of rock, could come shooting out to the surface. Eventually, these substances came to dominate the economy. They have provided the propulsion for our global technological civilization. It is no exaggeration to say that in a sense they run the world. As always, there is a price to pay.

Coal, oil, and gas are called fossil fuels, because they are mostly made of the fossil remains of beings from long ago. The chemical energy within them is a kind of stored sunlight originally accumulated by ancient plants. Our civilization runs by burning the remains of humble creatures who inhabited the Earth hundreds of millions of years before the first humans came on the scene. Like some ghastly cannibal cult, we subsist on the dead bodies of our ancestors and distant relatives.

If we think back to the time when our only fuel was wood, we gain some appreciation of the benefits fossil fuels have brought. They have also created vast global industries, with immense financial and political power—not just the oil, gas, and coal conglomerates, but also subsidiary industries wholly (autos, airplanes) or
partly (chemicals, fertilizers, agriculture) dependent on them. This dependence means that nations will go to extreme lengths to preserve their sources of supply. Fossil fuels were important factors in the conduct of World Wars I and II. Japanese aggression at the start of World War II was explained and justified on the grounds that she was obliged to safeguard her sources of oil. As, for example, the 1991 Persian Gulf War reminds us, the political and military importance of fossil fuels remains high.